Divination the easy way
by Bouncebackability
Summary: James and Lily decide to show off, only to find they hadn't thought it through as much as they thought they had.


"It's simple and nothing can go wrong. We simply brew the potion, take it and we have 60 minutes in the future to get a few predictions thus passing divination. Simple" James sounded over-confident as he said this, fact was for the first time in his life he was failing a subject and something desperate was needed to avoid the impending howler from his parents. In theory the potion would work, even Lily admitted that much, OK so it had the minor drawback of never have being tried and also being made up by a bunch of 17-year-old kids but the potential was real. Wormwood to accelerate time, Finally ground Niffler skin to reverse any changes, the shell of a Snorkback whale to delay the reversal. It would work. It had to.  
  
The couple odd looking couple were alone in Gryffindor tower, the remaining marauders where pigging about in the heavy snow outside leaving the love struck couple alone; Lily lying on the floor in her muggle attire of indigo denim flared jeans and a bright pink skinny tee shirt while James sat cross- legged beside her in black robes, his hair still an untameable mess and hazel eyes staring out through his milk bottle glasses. In front of them lay scraps of paper covered in notes and a couple of text books most unusual of all a bubbling thick liquid in a pewter cauldron being lit by a perfectly round flames beneath hovering about half a foot from the floor.  
  
"Ok, lets do it, we've checked the theory about 10 times and it has to work, in theory it's perfect." Lily sounded too apprehensive, James was also aware of the fact she said theory in the sentence twice but practically not a once. "So, are we doing it?" James asked ladling out some of the gloopy mixture into matching silver beakers acquired on a late night mission to the kitchens. "Ok, as long as you take the map and cloak. We should stay covered at all times, should be easy enough to pull off for an hour" "Agreed" James said, wrapping the cloak tight around him and his girlfriend. "Let's get it downed".  
  
The potion tasted foul, sort of like sardines with meringue and its thick texture gave the impression of someone sitting on your chest. James looked around with disappointment; they were in exactly the same place in exactly the same time. The gobstones on the table where in the same positions, the chairs in the same order and even the same blizzard was occurring outside the window. Lily was the first to speak "It didn't work". James' face fell as he admitted the reality to himself, he had to admit she was right. Getting up and looking around the common room the final straw was a transfiguration essay on a table by the far window, it had Peter's untidy scrawl all over it.  
  
James' looked over to Lily, she had put a glamour on herself for the day, just to make the last day of the holiday's special. Her usual shoulder- length red hair was dark brown and past her waist and her usually dazzling green eyes where almost black, James had told her off numerous times for this saying she was perfect just the way she was but Lily had insisted it was only temporary; the effects would wear off before the rest of the school got there the next day. Lily was rather impressed with her new look, she had always wanted to be a brunette, yet she could not deny she was glad it would wear off after 24 hours. She missed her eye colour; her eyes were her feature, the thing that made her unique.  
  
"Yeah, we are still in exactly the same place, if we had gone forward a week something would have changed but it hasn't. Well, I'm fed up, let's go outside and join in the fun, I might as well start asking Sirius for ways to avoid the howlers" James skulked outside, one arm around his girlfriend. The snow outside made it impossible to see anything, this gave Sirius the ideal opportunity to get Lily, he poured a gallon of freezing water from the lake over her head The rest of the day flew by, although it wasn't until late afternoon that Lily exacted her revenge on Sirius by burying his up to his neck in snow. After the blizzard had stopped the group had a rather aggressive snowball fight in which no prisoners were taken. Afterwards the 5 teens made there way to the great hall for the feast. Piles of roast meats, vegetables and Yorkshires awaited them.  
  
"So, how did it go? Find anything out for us?" Sirius enquired. "Didn't work, don't know what went wrong but we are still here and didn't go off anywhere. We followed the method but it must be a dud." "Too bad, that could have come in handy, so what's your cunning plan to pass divination" Remus asked, "Surely you've run out of ways to predict your own death by now". "There's still a few more up here, I'm gutted, that stuff tasted foul" James smiled tapping his temple with his index finger, now resigned to the fact that maybe time travel is a myth after all. After all how can you visit something that hasn't happened yet?  
  
"You want to go back up to the common room Lily? We have to clear up our junk before the other's get back tomorrow." James didn't bother waiting for an answer before grabbing his girlfriend's arm and carting her upstairs. Up in the common room Lily was tidying away the potion making stuff while James pondered over the method to see what had gone wrong "We added everything and stirred it all right and everything, why didn't it work" "It didn't work, James, because we made it up, as smart as we are we are still only sixth years attempting to do something that has never happened before. Maybe it was for the best, who knows what might have happened." Lily stated while on all fours trying to reach the last of the newt's eyes she had spilt under one of the chairs.  
  
It was then the pain started, it felt like someone was trying to split her head open, she instinctively curled up in a ball trying to prevent herself from screaming out loud. The pain got better to the point of feeling like she was being repeatedly being hit over the head with a sledgehammer before slowly subsiding. After a while she could open her eyes and in front of her she saw James. "Are you OK? Come on, let me help you up." Lily was eased into a chair by the side of the fireplace. "Do you want a drink or something, maybe you should go down to the hospital wing?" said a girl with bushy hair and large teeth. "No I'm fine, It's was just a migraine. It's almost gone now. Anyway, who are you? I thought there were only 5 of us staying over the holiday. I've not seen you about here" "We could say the same about you" said James. "Anyway I'm Harry, this is Hermione and the guy on the other sofa is Ron." For the first time Lily noticed a tall red head over in the corner who gave her a nod. It was then the words of James dawned on her. "I'm Lily, what did you say you were called?" Looking directly at James, he seemed to back away at this and nervously flattened his fringe over his scar. "Harry Potter"  
  
Lily suddenly sat upright, the fucking potion, she was in the common room in the future. "I don't suppose your dad is called James?" "My dad was James Potter, thought everyone knew that though. Everyone thinks I look just like him, why do you ask?" "What year is this?" Lily now sounded panicked, she was looking round the room and her eyes darted between the three people in front of her. "Bit of a random question, it's 1997 of course, same year its been for the past 12 months" Came the sarcastic tones of the redhead. "Shit" Lily couldn't believe it, the potion had kicked in but had sent her a little bit more than a week in the future, and because it hadn't worked like it was meant to how the hell was she meant to get back? "I guess you are a time traveller of some sort, am I right?" The bushy haired girl looked rather impressed with herself. "I guess so, how did you know?" Lily replied, rather shocked that the conclusion had been made so easily. Hermione had obviously picked up on the shocked expression on the unknown's face. "Asking for the year is a key sign of something being wrong, then there's the fact we've never seen you about here before, how did you manage it?" "Well me and James concocted a potion, it was meant to take us one week in the future for an hour but it didn't work like it was meant to, then about 5 hours later I got a banging headache and woke up here." "Maybe we should tell Dumbledore what's happened" "No, don't, we would get in all kinds of trouble. Anyway the potion might still wear off in an hour. If I'm still here in 2 hours, then we go to Dumbledore, agreed?" The others nodded.  
  
She looked at Harry; he really was the spit of his father, the only difference being the scar on his forehead, a slightly shorter nose and brilliant green eyes that reminded her of her own. As much as she would love to settle down with James she knew it wouldn't happen, a pure blood marrying a muggle-born? No chance, she was most probably just imagining what she wanted, after all lots of people have green eyes. "So, if James is your dad who is your mum?" she asked, hopeful of an answer but not building her hopes up too high. "If I told you Hermione here would kill me, sorry, she's a stickler for not screwing up timelines" He said this with a knowing smirk on his face, it was almost as if he been in this situation himself, then it dawned on Lily, who says that 20 years in the future time travel wasn't an everyday occurrence? The people of the future might even use it to give themselves more time.  
  
Lily took a moment to look round the common room, the same fire roared in the hearth, the same chairs laid scattered around the floor, the pictures were in the same order, if it hadn't been for the trio in front of her and the slightly different arrangement of people's belongings throughout the room she would not have thought anything had happened.  
  
"Why did you do it?" Hermione asked, although Lily got the impression that it was just to break the awkward silence which was forming. This trio appeared to be mature beyond their years, not once had they asked anything about the past and they refused to answer anything about the future. "James is failing divination, we were going to go a week in the future and get some predictions. He's getting tired of forecasting his own death, which appears the only way you can pass the subject. I said I'd come along for the ride providing we kept well out of sight. We thought it hadn't worked so forgot about it throughout the day, the rest you know". "Hear that Harry? Must be hereditary predicting your own death to pass divination. If you both drunk the potion though where's James?" The red head came over closer to the others, this made a new doubt form in Lily's mind. "I don't know..." "Are you dating James' then?" Harry asked, he must have picked up on the concern in Lily's voice. "Yeah, he's my boyfriend" "Your Dad must've had a thing about Lily's. Isn't that what your mum were called?"  
  
Lily didn't know what hit her first, the consistent use of past tense throughout the conversation or the realisation this boy in front of her was almost certainly her son. "What do you mean, was? What happened to your parents?" Lily was ranting, she had certainly found lots out about the future, none of which she really wanted to know. She was to have a son called Harry with her boyfriend, that bit she could live with, but now it was looking increasingly likely she was going to die before he finished high school. Harry looked almost as pale as Lily must have "I can't tell you, as much as I want to it will cause everything to change, and not necessarily for the better" Obviously Harry hadn't figured who this woman in front of him was.

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Thanks for the reviews, here goes....

Amscray....Ok, giant robots. Yay! Go you....(Am I missing something here?)

Eric2 ...Thanks for the reveiw, unfortunatly as you might have been able to see from the A/n in Imposter I have been getting over freshers flu and settling back in at uni. I'm hoping t oupdate this one quite soon though.

MsMissProngs ... I know about Trewlawny but I just wanted nother ditzy crappy teacher because Dumbledore was already ready to get shut of the subject, looking back I think I should have had a contrast but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

James And Lily4eva .. wow, you have a similar vocabulary to me. Just be careful otherwise people might start giving you stick for it.Don't worry, at this moment in time the story is goping to go that way.

Xandria Nirvana... This was my first fanfiction on here, I've not updated it for a while but I'm hoping to get round to it in the very near future (keep your eyes peeled). Since then my layout has got slightly better, if you look at Imposter you will probably see that.

OK, that's everyone whose ever reviewed this story sorted. Basically I've been busy and m ylaptop has been poorly but within a couple of weeks you will getting much more frequent updates. Please don't give up on me yet. Keep smiling, Kimmiijay Kotchanski


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